Are you craving a good crime show to watch? Do tales of mischief and murder make your heart beat just a little bit faster? If the answer is “yes” to both questions, keep reading.
England has always been a great exporter of crime stories, and the following list is sure to provide many hours of fun for all those Anglophiles who crave a good mystery or two. From the tragic real-life story of Ruth Etting to a new show that should make fans of Broadchurch happy, these 10 shows are a great way to pass the time and keep the mind guessing.
A fire at a swanky vacation houseboat, a love triangle involving an older man and two teenage girls and a podcaster investigating a person who has been missing for years — none of these things seem related to one another. Yet, by the time The Jetty concludes its superb four-episode first season, Detective Ember Manning (Jenna Coleman) will somehow tie all of them together in a tricky mystery that’s one of British TV’s best of 2024.
Coleman stars as Manning, who must deal with her own personal issues — she’s a widow, and her pre-teen daughter is starting to smoke — while also trying to solve several mysteries simultaneously. Similar to Happy Valley, The Jetty examines violence occurring in a bucolic setting and features a dynamite lead female performance from Coleman.
It’s no spoiler to reveal that Ruth Ellis (Lucy Boynton), the lead character in the new four-episode crime show A Cruel Love, died by hanging on July 13, 1955. Ruth was a real woman who committed a very real crime: She shot her lover, David Blakely (Laurie Davidson), on Easter the year of her death. But what led the nightclub hostess to carry out such a horrible act?
That’s the question behind A Cruel Love, BritBox’s excellent true-crime drama that explores Ruth’s motivations behind David’s murder, the subsequent trial that dominated the tabloid press and her death by execution, which is still the last time a woman was put to death for her crimes in the United Kingdom.
This story has been told before, most notably in the 1985 film Dance with a Stranger, but never as absorbing and detailed as it is here. As Ellis, Boynton is never better playing a woman left with few options in life. The show convincingly evokes a period when scandal could ruin reputations and a crime of passion could captivate a still-innocent public.
Dating apps are the worst, but for Detective Inspector Kat Donovan (Rosalind Eleazar), they could be deadly. When she finds a former boyfriend — who she thought had died over a decade ago — alive, well and looking for love on one of these apps, it sends her down a path that will force her to confront some dark secrets in her past.
Missing You is adapted from the novel by Harlan Coben, an American crime novelist behind several hit Netflix mysteries like Fool Me Once and Stay Close. Missing You offers similar pleasures: a protagonist traumatized by her past, a mystery with several twists and turns and several talented British actors who are largely unknown to Americans. With only five episodes, the series doesn’t overstay its welcome, and the ending is satisfying enough to make you look forward to the next Coben adaptation.
After his wife and daughter die tragically in a fire, Detective John Ridley (Adrian Dunbar) is forced into early retirement following a nervous breakdown. Eighteen months later, he’s back to help his former co-workers, but does he still have what it takes to solve mysteries? And, specifically, the curious cases of a murdered sheep farmer, a dead body that’s found on the moors and a cold case involving the disappearance of a young man 40 years ago?
Ridley is a run-of-the-mill British crime show that’s executed exceptionally well. The show spotlights the pastoral beauty of the English countryside and is just the right amount of moody to be cozy without becoming menacing. Dunbar is excellent as the haunted detective, and his frequent trips to the local jazz club to belt out a tune or two are a welcome wrinkle in an otherwise straightforward procedural.
You don’t become the so-called “Godmother” of the British criminal underground by being nice. Joan Hannington (Sophie Turner) is a single mother with too many responsibilities and not enough money to handle them all. In desperation, she turns to a life of crime in order to take care of her daughter and her debts. It’s easy for her, since she has a photographic memory and a talent for mimicry. But will Joan’s newfound taste for luxury, furs and jewels be her downfall?
As Joan, Turner gets to flex all her dramatic muscles without the aid of a dragon or a CGI phoenix. Armed with ’80s-era bangs and giant shoulder pads, her Joan is a warrior marching on a different kind of battlefield — one filled with lowlifes whom she can’t really trust. Maybe it’s not that different from her time on Game of Thrones after all.
Murder shows with priests are more common than you think, and they don’t get much better than Grantchester. The long-running series, which began in 2014 and is currently on its ninth season, focuses on the unlikely crime-solving duo of Detective Geordie Keating (Robson Green) and the vicar of Grantchester. Sidney Chambers (James Norton) was the first and best priest/sleuth, but his successors, Will Davenport (Tom Brittney) and Alphy Kotterman (Rishi Nair), are just as likable and dashing.
The show follows a standard formula — someone finds a dead body in or around Grantchester and Geordie and Sidney/Will/Alphy catch the culprit. The crimes are pretty routine and the mysteries aren’t all that complex, but the show’s 1950s-to-1960s period setting is evocative, and the cast is uniformly excellent. You may question the unusually high body count of a sleepy English village, but you won’t regret bingeing a season or two in one sitting. It’s that charming.
No one writes a better crime novel than Alan Conway (Conleth Hill). He knows that, which makes him insufferable. His editor, Susan Reyland (Lesley Manville), puts up with him because he sells a lot of books. But when Alan is found dead and the police deem it a suicide, she becomes suspicious. Alan would never do that — he loved himself too much. But who would end his life? And why?
Magpie Murders has a central mystery that is genuinely intriguing and a cast of appropriately shady suspects. But it’s Manville who is the chief reason to watch the show. She’s one of Britain’s best actors working today, and she’s funny and clever as the nonplussed Susan. A sequel series, Moonflower Murders, was released in 2024, and it’s also worth a look.
Buckinghamshire is one of those quaint English villages where people go for rest, relaxation and maybe a cup of tea. But murder? That’s what retired archaeologist Judith (Samantha Bond), dog walker Suzie (Jo Martin) and vicar’s wife Becks (Cara Horgan) discover one sunny afternoon. But who left the dead body floating in the river? Before the trio can even answer, another corpse turns up. Is there a serial killer on the prowl?
The Marlow Murder Club won’t win any points for realism or originality, but this kind of show needs to be credible enough to be entertaining without anyone bothering to question its logic. It’s a stereotypically “cozy” British crime series in the best possible sense, and former James Bond star Bond gets a rare lead role to showcase her underappreciated talents.
Adam Dalgliesh ranks along with Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes as one of England’s most beloved detectives, yet he’s largely unknown in America. That will hopefully change with Dalgliesh, a new crime series on Acorn TV. Stage actor Bertie Carvel embodies P.D. James’ brainy sleuth this time around, and he has his hands full in a series of mysteries set in the 1970s.
A brutal murder at a seminary, a politically-motivated crime among an upper-class family and a mystery involving an unusual hospital are just some of the cases Dalgliesh has to crack, and Carvel provides enough appeal to make you invested in the detective’s investigations. Like the novels it’s based on, Dalgliesh is more highbrow than your average crime show, but it provides the same thrills viewers expect from the genre. The show just aired its third season in 2024.
A pizza delivery man, Abdullah Asif (Sam Otto), is shot and killed in southwest London and almost no one seems to care. Detective Kip Glaspie (Carey Mulligan) is the exception, and thinks Abdullah’s death is more than just a random act of violence. Her assumption proves to be correct, as Kip’s investigation leads her to uncover a complex web that connects the police, politicians and human traffickers.
Collateral is shorter than your average crime series, but it packs a lot in its four episodes. In her pursuit to find Abdullah’s killer, Kip interrogates members of Parliament, a female vicar with something to hide and several MI5 agents to find out who killed him and why.
With an intelligent script by playwright David Hare and a bravura lead performance by Mulligan, Collateral is a rarity — a politically-minded crime drama that will leave you a bit unsettled after it’s over.
